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Madison Avenue: 1916

New York, 1916. Heckscher Building at 50 East 42nd Street and Madison Avenue. View full size. Irving Underhill photo. The building, which still stands, used to have a squash court on the 23rd floor. Nowadays it's dwarfed by its neighbors.

Okay, the building on right foreground is the Union Carbide building. The balcony is the upper railing/walkway of the Manhattan Hotel built 1897 (Henry Janeway Hardenbergh), remodeled 1921-22 and renamed National City Bank. Demolished circa 1963. The Lincoln Safe Deposit Co. was demolished 1928. Behind it is the rear view of the Hotel Belmont 1906, demolished 1931. The building between Union Carbide and Heckscher is possibly the Murray Hill Hotel. South of the Manhattan Hotel and to the left of the Heckscher building (not visible) was the future site of the 1921 Liggett Drug building. The Belmont Hotel, on Park Avenue between 41st and 42nd streets, had me stumped for a while. Bye for now C.R. Can't believe I confused G.G. Bain with Irving Underhill on the Singer 1908 picture. And that wasn't the Queen Insurance building, it was the Dun building. Thanks Dave for the correction.

Southeast. 42nd St heads east (to the left). Construction of the southern ramp of the "circumferential elevated driveway" around the newly-completed Grand Central Terminal is visible on Park Ave one block east. Madison Ave is one-way heading north, that comes in from the right at the bottom of the photo. Was it always one-way? Dunno.

The Lincoln Safe Deposit Co building is now the 53-story Lincoln Building, directly across the street from the Vanderbilt Ave/42nd St GCT entrance in the foreground here. Been in there many times to a friend's office but I never knew about this building right next door. Thanks Shorpy, I learn something every day.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.